Second field campaign in the Guatemala Project

In his DFG-funded project "Active tectonics of the Caribbean-North American plate boundary in GuatemalaExternal link", Christoph Grützner investigates the seismic activity of the Motagua and Polochic faults in Guatemala. His second field trip was devoted to excavate a paleoseismological trench across the Motagua Fault in the Province of Zacapa. This fault ruptured in 1976 in an earthquake of magnitude 7.5, and surface ruptures were reported from the area of the trench site. By excavating the fault, the team aims to reconstruct the earhquake history of the fault and to better understand the architecture of the fault zone.